Obsessed with digital culture: writing on film, TV, music, and the internet

platforming

It seems, as gamers, that Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom associates have been with us from the beginning. Of course, they haven’t. What’s important about Shigeru Miyamoto’s work on the Mario series is that it almost invalidated everything that came before. With some, indeed many, exceptions, most that preceded it suddenly seemed like mere experimental prodding towards something of greater importance. Perhaps i’m overstating Mario’s power but that’s, at least, how it seems on the wide open surface. Having already set the watermark high with his first outings, he would only continue that trend for the decades ahead – reinventing the platforming genre at every turn and outclassing his peers with ease.…
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